Bidders would get iPads back under proposed law

A Republican state senator has introduced a bill to bar the Colorado state government from keeping iPads and other pricey electronic devices that it solicits during bidding processes.

Instead, state departments would be required to return such equipment to companies vying for state contracts.

Senate Bill 34, which was introduced Jan. 16, is scheduled to be heard Jan. 30 by the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.

Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said he was inspired to write SB 34 after reading in the Denver Business Journal last September about a bidding requirement by the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF). The department required companies bidding on a contract last year to submit bids on seven iPads that would not be returned to them.

Lundberg said he spoke to constituents and business owners who felt universally that the requirement was “shocking.”

SB 34 allows departments to keep electronic devices worth $50 or less, such as thumb drives, but not anything larger.

“It smells like graft. It smells like just a little bit of stuff under the table to grease the palms of the process,” Lundberg said. “I think this is one of those things where we need to be very clear that this can’t be part of the requirements for bidding with the state.”

HCPF officials last year began the bidding process to redesign the Medicaid Management Information System, a potential $100 million reboot of the program that handles all Medicaid claims in Colorado.

Bidders were asked to submit their proposals on seven nonreturnable Apple iPad2 or newer tablets with WiFi capability and 32 gigabytes of storage capacity, equipped with applications such as Quickoffice Pro and iAnnotate, so that a seven-member committee could consider them.

The request for proposals brought criticism from business groups and from legislators of both parties.

The Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry warned that such proposals could discriminate against smaller companies that don’t have the resources to offer up free equipment, and Rep. Cheri Gerou, R-Evergreen, estimated that it could cost each bidder $5,000 just to be able to submit proposals — a price she felt was too steep to try for a state contract.

However, during a Sept. 18 meeting at the Capitol, a number of potential bidders said they did not mind the requirement, arguing it was cheaper to store the lengthy proposals on an iPad than to print, bind and ship them.

Lundberg said he found the vendor reaction “curious” and said he believes that any major proposal could be stored on a large thumb drive.

HCPF officials said at the time that they couldn’t return the iPads because it would cost them money to ship them and because they could face liability issues if they gave the wrong device to the wrong vendor. But Lundberg called that “nonsense.”

“Give me a break on that,” he said. “I guess they are arguing they are not competent to return an item worth several thousand dollars with a shipping cost of about 20 bucks.”

Marc Williams, a HCPF policy and communications officer, said in an email Jan. 16 that the department has no position on the bill.

Lundberg said he’s not sure what kind of crowd he can get to testify for the bill, as the proposal was not brought to him by an industry or interest group, but he hopes that members of both parties can see the merits of requiring the state to give back pricey pieces of equipment to its potential business partners.

“The bill doesn’t prohibit anything. It just says what they keep shouldn’t be more than 50 bucks,” Lundberg said.